A long lasting Tzatziki. Make a sandwich with it for lunch, with lettuce, for 14p

Well phew, what a busy weekend. And you should see my diary for the next fortnight! I have one of those diaries that show 2 weeks at a time and there are scribblings of appointments all over both pages. Plus I have an overloaded To Do list AND I’m supposed to be organising our wedding.

Good job it’s raining today, or I would want to get out in the garden as well.

We went for a lovely walk yesterday. It was supposed to be the same one that I had been on on Monday with the U3A. I successfully remembered most of it, and knew where I needed to end up for the last part, but just couldn’t remember how we had got there, so had to cut it a bit short. Still, we walked for an hour and twenty minutes, instead of what was supposed to be just over 2 hours, so not too shabby.

We undid all the calorie burn tho by going home, changing and going to Galin for lunch, a lovely European Bistro in Heathfield. We were lucky to get a table too, they were heaving, always a good sign tho. I don’t want to go to a place no-one else wants to go to, there’s usually a very good reason. I started off with fishcakes, DP had a walnut and blue cheese salad. Then we went on to a roast beef lunch for him, liver and bacon for me. Their food is so lovely, beautifully presented, and absolutely delicious. Then they tempted us and we gave in to pudding as well. We never have 3 courses! He had a wonderful chocolate torte and I had a peanut mousse with banana cake and caramel sauce. The mousse was delightful and I spent an hour looking up recipes for it when we went home. I had a little experiment, as you do, and came up with something good, but more of that tomorrow.

For today, I want to pass on the Tzatziki recipe I got for the Greek Cookery course I did recently at Claverham College. Or maybe, just one tip from it. The reason I want to pass on such a simple recipe is that today, 9 days after I made it, the bit of that Tzatziki I still have is still perfectly ok. I would expect it to be extremely watery and disgusting by now.

Tzatziki

350g Greek yoghurt, Aldi, Brooklea, 500g 69p, 48p
half a cucumber, Aldi, 44p a cucumber, half is 22p
2 tblsp lemon juice, Aldi, 3 lemons, 75p, half a lemon, 12p
2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped, 5p
dash of extra virgin olive oil if you have it
paprika, to sprinkle on top, if you have it

Total 87p, enough to fill 8-10 sandwiches, 9p a sandwich, plus 4p for 2 slices from a value loaf or 2p for a large home made pitta

If you add some salad leaves, the cheapest way if you have to buy them is an iceberg lettuce, 45p in Aldi. So a sandwich worth would be 1-2p. A total of 14p for a sandwich

as this shopping list is Aldi, I have used fresh lemons as mySupermarket is not showing bottles of lemon juice in Aldi. Lemon juice would be much cheaper

Peel the skin off the cucumber, as that is the part that gives many people indigestion. Cut down the length of the cucumber and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Normally I would say to use everything in something you’ve paid good money for, but the seeds add a lot of water, which we don’t want in this recipe. Now coarsely grate the cucumber, tip it into a clean tea-towel, and squeeeeeze the water out.

All we have to do is stir all the ingredients together and sprinkle on the paprika if you have any. If you have any, some fine chopped mint would be good

The important part that seems to have made all the difference is in the preparation of the cucumber. If you want to keep it for a few days, don’t add any salt, it will draw out the moisture and make the Tzatziki watery. If you want to use salt, add it when you are going to eat it.

This is lovely in a sandwich, especially with a load of salad leaves. If you want to take that sandwich to work, I think I would take the ingredients separately or it might get a bit soggy by lunchtime. Or have it with a home made pitta and maybe some carrot batons.

You could vary it by using lovely peppery finely chopped radish, very cheap if you can grow some. You could use tomatoes too, but you would need to be ruthless with the seeds, they would make it watery. Other vegetables are all very usable, how about fine chopped celery, maybe with some chervil, or a dramatic red one with little bits of cooked beetroot, or some coarse grated carrot, maybe with a sprinkle of raisins. Ooh, ooh, what about very finely sliced and chopped fennel, or a little bit mixed in with the cucumber version. How exotic is that!

The reason I want to pass on such a simple recipe is that today, 9 days after I made it, the bit of that Tzatziki I still have is still perfectly ok. I would expect it to be extremely watery and disgusting by now.